Research trend: Power analyses in polycentric and multi-level forest governance

Forest policy analyses have increasingly employed political, sociological and jurisprudence theories to explain the fundamental social and political outcomes of particular forest policies and programs. A new strand of forest policy analysis even contributes to the creation of new theories and frameworks. One of the novel advances of this discipline is the theoretical framework of Actor-Centred Power (ACP) that is dedicated for power analyses. We comment on the recent scholarship employing the framework and propose future research directions. We identify potential gaps for the use of the theoretical framework for analysing power relationships in polycentric and multi-level forest governance. They include key questions for the theory, methods, and empirical research that warrant for close observation in the future.